HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. (AP) – A former athletic manager for Hofstra University’s football team claims in a federal discrimination lawsuit that players sexually harassed her repeatedly, including when an assistant coach played a sexually explicit movie on a team bus.
Lauren Summa, a 23-year-old graduate student, said that her complaints to coaches and university officials went unheeded, and that she was dropped from the team’s athletic staff after speaking out.
“I was totally humiliated, embarrassed and ashamed,” Summa told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Wednesday. “I never thought I would be in this position in my life. I thought the authority figures would step up.”
A former Miss Teen Pennsylvania from Mount Lebanon, Pa., Summa was hired in 2006 as a team manager, handling duties such as record-keeping and clearing the practice field of equipment. She claims she was subjected to sexual harassment “during every bus trip that she made in the 2006 season.”
She said she complained about harassment to head coach Dave Cohen. He had assured her that he would take disciplinary action, but nothing happened and the harassment continued, she said.
Her lawsuit says that the most egregious episode came on a bus ride home from the team’s final game against the University of Massachusetts following a 2-9 season. An assistant coach put the 2005 film “Shadowboxer” starring Cuba Gooding Jr. on the bus’ video player. The movie features sexually explicit scenes between a white woman and a black man.
Summa alleges that players shouted and yelled obscenities when they saw one of the interracial sex scenes, and that one player confronted her, yelling, “This is what you white women want.” Summa said the coach turned off the video soon after she complained.
Players locked Summa in the bathroom on an earlier bus ride, she claims. Her lawsuit says when she went to Cohen, he told her that it wasn’t serious and that reporting it to campus authorities “would only draw unnecessary attention to the football program.”
Summa, who was a member of Hofstra’s cross-country team as a freshman, describes herself in court papers as an “avid and lifelong football fan” who took the $1,000-a-year job to defray expenses as she attended graduate school after receiving a bachelor’s degree in journalism in May 2006. She remains a graduate student at Hofstra, studying speech communications.
Hofstra’s vice president for university relations, Melissa Connolly, said in a statement the Long Island school was “confident that all matters relating to these allegations were handled appropriately” and she would have no further comment because of the litigation.
Cohen said in a statement issued through Connolly’s office that he was “very proud of the way we conduct our football program.” He also would not comment further because of the lawsuit, which was filed last week in Brooklyn federal court.
Summa said that she was dropped from the athletic staff in spring 2007, and that an offer to work in the Hofstra’s university relations office was rescinded. She seeks reinstatement to her job and unspecified monetary damages.
Hofstra, which competes in the Colonial Athletic Association, has sent several players to the National Football League in recent years, including former New York Jets star Wayne Chrebet, the New Orleans Saints’ Marques Colston and the Miami Dolphins’ Lance Schulters.
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